Nov. 21, 2020
I just received copies of Stratégies Obliques, a new limited edition split LP with work by Steve Roden (and me) on one side and Small Cruel Party on the other, released on the Ferns label in France. It looks nice – white vinyl! I don’t have a turntable but we can all listen on BandCamp.
Steve Roden has been a dear friend and art comrade for many years. We met back in the 90s, performed and toured together with vocalist Anna Homler, corresponded often and occasionally visited each other over the years, and made a very beautiful duo CD together back in 2012.
I hadn’t heard from Steve in a couple of years and was missing him. I assumed he was just busy, but then earlier this year I learned that he had been diagnosed several years ago with a cognitive disorder, which explained his long silence. He is still able to paint, but it has curtailed his musical output and effected his ability to communicate via email. I went to visit him and his wife Sari in Los Angeles last February with the hope of being helpful to them in some way. I was able to assist with his backlog of correspondence, some of it regarding projects that had been languishing for quite some time. This was one of those.
The label had invited Steve to do one side of an LP with ex-Seattle resident William Key Ransome (aka Small Cruel Party) on the other. The plan was that they should both make their pieces using Oblique Strategies, an oracular deck of cards by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt intended to be used as prompts during the creative process. Any cards they used would become the titles of the pieces. I offered to assist Steve with making his half of the record.
He was feeling pretty frustrated with trying to operate his electronic gear, so I suggested I record him improvising with the various acoustic instruments and objects strewn around his studio. He enjoyed that because it was familiar, tactile, and immediately gratifying. I also suggested he try singing from a book of poetry by Robert Lax that I had previously given him as a gift. I then edited all of the recordings and left a copy with him. When I got home, he sent me a few of the recordings that he liked, along with three modular synth tracks he had made after I left. I used that material along with some of the other recordings we had made to create the pieces for this album. We are both happy with the way it turned out, and for the opportunity to collaborate again.
That trip to LA happened just a couple of weeks before COVID-19 hit and the world changed. In the early days of lockdown I stayed busy finishing up several projects, of which this was the last. Since then I’ve been hoping to get back to doing creative work but finding it hard to feel inspired with the current state of the world and the daily horror show surrounding the election. One idea is that I might use some of the other material we recorded for this album to make a different project of my own. I’ll let you know if anything should come of that.